When building large structures it is beneficial to reduce labour costs and minimise build times. This is particularly relevant to the construction of nuclear power plants where such efficiencies are necessary to allow nuclear power to become a more viable and realistic alternative fuel source to fossil fuels or other low capacity alternative sources.
Nuclear power plants and other sensitive structures including nuclear waste processing and/or storage facilities are required to withstand natural events such as earthquakes and hurricane force winds, and to contain large over-pressures. This necessitates substantial reinforcement of the building structure. Known reinforcement means employ a complex and expensive assembly of layered planar steel plates braced apart by a separate internal lattice of stiffening members and/or tie bars and/or shear studs, examples of which are shown in FIGS. 1a and 1b. A highly specialised and skilled work force—which itself is expensive and difficult to source—is required to assemble those presently available solutions.
Consequently, there exists a need for a simpler, more efficient and more cost-effective means of providing structural reinforcements to the nuclear and other industries.